FC: Weekly column: Lawsuit could set anti-spam rules for ISPs

From: Declan McCullagh (declanat_private)
Date: Tue Jun 24 2003 - 08:00:54 PDT

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    http://news.com.com/2010-1071_3-1019814.html
    
    Setting the rules for ISPs and spammers
    By Declan McCullagh
    June 23, 2003, 4:00 AM PT
    
        Peter Hall's troubles with spam began the week of Aug. 5, 1997, when
        the New York-based independent film producer learned that his
        EarthLink account had been shut off without warning.
    
        EarthLink, a leading Internet service provider (ISP), had
        concluded--incorrectly, it turns out--that Hall was a spammer. The
        company terminated Hall's e-mail account but chose not to bounce or
        forward his e-mail messages. It instead quietly stored them in a mail
        spool. Anyone sending Hall e-mail likely concluded that the message
        had gone through.
    
        This week, a federal judge in New York is scheduled to hear arguments
        in a $2 million lawsuit that Hall filed against EarthLink a year
        later. It claims that EarthLink violated the law and that the missed
        e-mail resulted in his low-budget film "Delinquent" becoming a flop.
        (The film, which described a tortured teen's conflict with his abusive
        father, did manage to score a favorable review from The Village Voice,
        which dubbed it "raw, restless, contemplative and haunting."
    
        The lawsuit is worth watching for three reasons. First, it may address
        whether oft-controversial antispam blacklists like the Mail Abuse
        Prevention System (MAPS) are legal or not.
    
        Second, it looks at what happens when an ISP fails to neither deliver
        nor bounce incoming e-mail. Last year, a Canadian woman named Nancy
        Carter sued her ISP for $110,000 in damages after it held her mail
        because of unpaid bills. A relatively new California law requires
        e-mail service providers to give a 30-day notice before terminating
        accounts. No U.S. court case decision appears to have addressed this
        practice, which critics say is tantamount to holding e-mail hostage.
    
        Third, it tries to establish the novel--and worrisome--legal principle
        that ISPs fall into a near-archaic "public interest" category that
        would prohibit them from giving the boot to subscribers whom they
        honestly believe to be spamming.
    
        [...]
    
    
    
    
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